# Robust Multi-Disease Retinal Classification via Xception-Based Transfer Learning and W-Net Vessel Segmentation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.10608 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.10608/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 2 of its 8 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Dec 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Deep image mining for diabetic retinopathy screening](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.07086/) (2016)
- [The Little W-Net That Could: State-of-the-Art Retinal Vessel Segmentation with Minimalistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.01907/) (2020)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In recent years, the incidence of vision-threatening eye diseases has risen dramatically, necessitating scalable and accurate screening solutions. This paper presents a comprehensive study on deep learning architectures for the automated diagnosis of ocular conditions. To mitigate the "black-box" limitations of standard convolutional neural networks (CNNs), we implement a pipeline that combines deep feature extraction with interpretable image processing modules. Specifically, we focus on high-fidelity retinal vessel segmentation as an auxiliary task to guide the classification process. By grounding the model's predictions in clinically relevant morphological features, we aim to bridge the gap between algorithmic output and expert medical validation, thereby reducing false positives and improving deployment viability in clinical settings.